Green food Q&A: Fast takes on 'slow' food movement

Gary Paul Nabhan, a professor of environmental science at Northern Arizona University, is founder of the Renewing America's Food Traditions Project of Slow Food USA, a non-profit educational organization. He recently spoke with Stephanie Innes of the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, about the ''slow food'' movement.

Q. What is ''slow food''?
A. The difference between slow food and fast food is the difference between making love to your spouse and having quick sex in a phone booth. The latter may excite you for about 15 seconds but it makes you feel terrible for months.

Q. The Slow Food Movement began in 1986. Has it gained momentum in recent years?
A. There are now 160 local chapters of Slow Food in the United States. Ten years ago there were about five chapters. It is one of the fastest-growing membership organizations in the United States. It's estimated about 40,000 people from the U.S. will come to the May 2008 event, ''Slow Food Nation'' in San Francisco.

Q. Why is slow food becoming more popular?
A. The genius of slow food is to make the participation in food issues pleasurable and celebratory rather than being a condemnation of bad habits. They are giving people positive incentives to eat fresh, flavorful food grown in a sustainable way. Rather than exacting guilt on everyone, it is about trying to encourage safe, clean and just food production by giving positive incentives to farmers and fishermen. At slow food events, you meet the farmers and the foragers and the fishermen. Rather than being impersonal and sort of all abstract, it's very visceral and participatory. It's a major paradigm shift in environmentalism in the U.S. Slow food emphasizes positive human responses to the environment.

Q. How does the slow food movement relate to the green movement?
A. Every part of the green movement is trying to reduce energy consumption and waste, and one out of every five calories spent in the food system is on transporting either frozen or refrigerated food -- literally one in every 25 calories spent in America is on food transportation.

By emphasizing local, fresh seasonal foods, we can deal with one of the major parts of the green movement -- our excessive energy consumption -- by really focusing on getting many of the same foods we get from distant places from closer places, where they are fresh and richer in vitamins. We're solving economic, nutritional and ecological problems all at once.

Q. How is slow food different from simply purchasing organic food items?
A. It is not exclusively focused on any formula that ''organic is good'' and ''non-organic is bad.'' It emphasizes safe, clean and fair trade products. A lot more is place-based. If you are in Alaska, you may want to emphasize fish and game because it's hard to grow vegetables there. In Tucson you may want to emphasize vegetables that are low-water consuming.

Q. What are some concrete ways people can become slow foodies and help save the planet while eating well?
A. In the desert Southwest for example, it would be buying from local farmers and ranchers that have plant and animal foods unique to the area -- by finding prickly pear syrup rather than maple syrup, local grass-fed beef rather than feedlot beef, and helping local food producers so that more of the consumer dollar returns to your community rather than going off to Wal-Mart headquarters.

Q. What do you see as the future of the slow food movement?
A. I believe that it's transforming environmental issues by emphasizing celebratory, restorative actions rather than being confrontational or holier than thou. It embraces people from all walks of life and it's bipartisan and it's fun. And people who care about the environment and quality of our food should have as much fun or more than anyone else.

The growth rate of natural, organic and local foods is now faster and higher than the growth rate of Wal-Mart. I'd rather see food dollars shared with 40 farmers in a neighborhood than with one corporation.

The food is so good and it really almost viscerally seduces people.

Stephanie Innes is a reporter for the Arizona Daily Star, sinnes@azstarnet.com